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dotnet publish with --no-build and PublishSingleFile fails with "Could not find file singlefilehost.exe" error

See original GitHub issue

Description

Running the following on Windows 10 or Server Core 2019:

mkdir test
cd test
dotnet new console
dotnet restore -r win-x64
dotnet build --no-restore -r win-x64 --configuration Debug
dotnet publish --no-build -r win-x64 --configuration Debug -p:PublishSingleFile=true --output ./publish

results in the following error message (truncated):

The "GenerateBundle" task failed unexpectedly.
System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file 'D:\dev\test\obj\Debug\net5.0\win-x64\singlefilehost.exe'.

Removing the --no-build parameter or using --no-restore fixes the issue.

Configuration

.NET 5.0.101
Windows 10.0.19042

Can also be reproduced on docker images:

mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0
mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/sdk:5.0-windowsservercore-ltsc2019

Other information

Full error messages / stack trace:

C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018: The "GenerateBundle" task failed unexpectedly. [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018: System.IO.FileNotFoundException: Could not find file 'D:\dev\test\obj\Debug\net5.0\win-x64\singlefilehost.exe'. [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018: File name: 'D:\dev\test\obj\Debug\net5.0\win-x64\singlefilehost.exe' [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at System.IO.FileSystem.CopyFile(String sourceFullPath, String destFullPath, Boolean overwrite) [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at System.IO.File.Copy(String sourceFileName, String destFileName, Boolean overwrite) [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.NET.HostModel.AppHost.BinaryUtils.CopyFile(String sourcePath, String destinationPath) [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.NET.HostModel.Bundle.Bundler.GenerateBundle(IReadOnlyList`1 fileSpecs) [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.GenerateBundle.ExecuteCore() [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.NET.Build.Tasks.TaskBase.Execute() [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskExecutionHost.Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.ITaskExecutionHost.Execute() [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]
C:\Program Files\dotnet\sdk\5.0.101\Sdks\Microsoft.NET.Sdk\targets\Microsoft.NET.Publish.targets(1016,5): error MSB4018:    at Microsoft.Build.BackEnd.TaskBuilder.ExecuteInstantiatedTask(ITaskExecutionHost taskExecutionHost, TaskLoggingContext taskLoggingContext, TaskHost taskHost, ItemBucket bucket, TaskExecutionMode howToExecuteTask) [D:\dev\test\test.csproj]

Issue Analytics

State:
Created 3 years ago
Reactions:2
Comments:8 (2 by maintainers)

Top GitHub Comments

9reactions

rupertbenbrookcommented, May 8, 2021

If you add -p:PublishSingleFile=true to the build step as well as the publish step, this seems to solve it. I guess defining the PublishSingleFile property in the build outputs the file that’s missing. So the working version is:

mkdir test
cd test
dotnet new console
dotnet restore -r win-x64
dotnet build --no-restore -r win-x64 --configuration Debug -p:PublishSingleFile=true
dotnet publish --no-build -r win-x64 --configuration Debug -p:PublishSingleFile=true --output ./publish

1reaction

agockecommented, Apr 26, 2023

This is basically a duplicate of https://github.com/dotnet/sdk/issues/14827

The problem is that you can’t set new properties in Publish because they may change things during the build which later get consumed during Publish.

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